Syllabus
On Nothing
Syllabus — T2 2025-26
IMPORTANT NOTE: 'ON NOTHING' IS AN OFFLINE MODULE — USE OF DEVICES WILL NOT BE PERMITTED IN THE SEMINAR SPACE, AND HARD COPIES OF EACH WEEK'S READINGS MUST BE BROUGHT TO SEMINAR, TO REFER TO IN DISCUSSION.
APART FROM THE REQUIRED TEXTS (TO PURCHASE OR OBTAIN THROUGH THE LIBRARY), ALL THE READINGS WILL BE INCLUDED IN A PHOTOCOPIED PACKET—AVAILABLE TO PICK UP FROM THE MODULE INSTRUCTOR FROM THE START OF WEEK 5 IN T1.
DETAILS ON 'SELECTIONS' NOTED BELOW WILL BE PROVIDED IN THE READING PACKET.
Week 1 鈥楤eginner鈥檚 mind鈥: techniques for attention, concentration, and mindfulness.
Philip Whalen, 鈥淪ourdough Mountain Lookout.鈥 Joanne Kyger, 鈥淒ragon Wind of Universal Influence Whalen Says.鈥 Eihei Dogen, selections from Shobogenzo Zuimonki, Trans. Shohaku Okumura. Maha-su帽帽ata Sutta: The Greater Discourse on Emptiness, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Week 2 鈥極n the being of nothing鈥: philosophies of nothing.
Guilhem de Peiteus, 鈥淧oem on Nothing.鈥 Fragments of Parmenides. Fridugisus of Tours, On the Being of Nothing and Shadows. John Scotus Erigena, selections from Periphyseon. Meister Eckhart, selections from German Sermons. Jean Paul Sartre, selections from Being and Nothingness.
Week 3 鈥業 have nothing to say and I am saying it鈥: boredom, saying and doing nothing, or 鈥榙oing life鈥?
Andy Warhol, Sleep (excerpt / full length ). John Cage, 鈥淟ecture on Nothing鈥 (from Silence), 4鈥33鈥. Herman Melville, 鈥淏artleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street.鈥 Selected Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh.
Week 4 鈥楨verything from nothing鈥: contemporary particle physics and cosmology.
Rosmarie Waldrop, 鈥淶ero, or the Opening Position.鈥 Frank Close, Nothing: A Very Short Introduction.
Optional meeting with the Elementary Particle Physics Group at U of 糖心TV (Wed 4 Feb).
Week 5 鈥楲iterature of the unword鈥: writing nothing, or 鈥榓t degree zero.鈥
Anne-Marie Albiach, 鈥淲inter Voyage.鈥 Roland Barthes, 鈥淲riting and Silence.鈥 Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, selections from Texts for Nothing, 鈥淧ing,鈥 Three Dialogues.
Week 6 Reading Week
Week 7 鈥楴o medium鈥: art of nothing.
Information as Material, 鈥淣OTHING: A User鈥檚 Manual.鈥 Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler, 鈥淭he Dematerialization of Art.鈥 Craig Dworkin, selections from No Medium. Robert Rauschenberg, White Paintings. Ad Reinhardt, 鈥淭welve Rules for a New Academy.鈥 Ben Lerner, 鈥淚nstitute for Totaled Art鈥 (excerpt from 10:04).
Week 8 鈥楳uch ado about nothing鈥: (un)gendering the void.
Selections from Shakespeare. Emily Dickinson, Envelope Poems, eds. Marta L. Werner and Jen Bervin. Anna C. Chave, 鈥淎gnes Martin: 鈥楬umility, the Beautiful Daughter . . . . All of Her Ways Are Empty.鈥欌 Audrey Wollen, 鈥淏eware Male Artists Making Artwork About Emptiness: Nothing Does Not Belong to You.鈥 Lee Edelman, selections from Bad Education: Why Queer Theory Teaches Us Nothing.
Week 9 鈥楾he position of the unthought鈥: Black and Decolonial negativity.
Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, 鈥淢utron.鈥 Fred Moten, selections from 鈥淏lackness and Nothingness (Mysticism in the Flesh).鈥 鈥淥n Black Negativity, Or the Affirmation of Nothing: Jared Sexton, interviewed by Daniel Barber." Albert Wendt, selections from The Book of the Black Star. 鈥淥verturning the Doctrine of Terra Nullius: The Mabo Case.鈥 John Kinsella, selections from 鈥淚s There an Australian Pastoral?鈥
Week 10 鈥楴othing at all鈥: the case for degrowth.
Wallace Stevens, 鈥淭he Snow Man.鈥 Giorgos Kallis et al., 鈥淩esearch on Degrowth.鈥 Andrew James Thompson, 鈥淕rowth and degrowth: Dewey and self-limitation.鈥 Stefania Barca, 鈥淭he Labor(s) of Degrowth.鈥 Marco Deriu, 鈥淐onviviality,鈥 Sylvia Lorek, 鈥淒ematerialization,鈥 and Chris Carlsson, 鈥淣owtopians,鈥 from Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, eds. Giacomo d鈥橝lisa et al. Masanobu Fukuoka, selections from The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming.